Phantom Liberty is CD Projekt’s last chance to redeem Cyberpunk 2077

Third trailer for Phantom LibertyThe first and only expansion planned for Cyberpunk 2077, dropped on Sunday at Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase. It includes a new look at actor Idris Elba and a few additional details about the add-on’s gameplay. The political aspect is what stands out, as V has to save the president of America.

This won’t be a story about life on the rough streets of Night City. It’s a tale of espionage and political intrigue, where players will be asked again and again to question their loyalties. V’s stakes and those of developer CD Projekt Red are surprising high.

Cyberpunk 2077 arrived late — very late, in fact, and in poor shape. After the game’s December 2020 launch (and the admission that CD Projekt Red made its employees crunch, even after promising it wouldn’t), it took until February 2022 for the big version 1.5 patch to finally roll out. And while the cars don’t launch themselves into orbit quite as often as they used to, the game’s storyline is still a bit of a disappointment to die-hard fans of the deeper Cyberpunk lore.

We have re-reviewed the entire book. Cyberpunk 2077 from April 2022, Cameron Kunzelman noted, “With this game’s long tail of updates, there are seemingly infinite chances to go deeper, to rethink some assumptions, and to engage with the genre at least as fully as its founding texts did. None of these features were thought to be worthy enough for a new patch. It is more substantive, apparently, to make sure there are new apartments and cars and guns.”

When viewed in this way, Phantom Liberty is CD Projekt’s last opportunity for a more complete redemption for its biggest-ever video game. By invoking the executive branch of the U.S., they’re going for the jugular of the franchise’s deeper lore — and the key to understanding it may be a contemporary tabletop role-playing game.

Cyberpunk 2077 is based on R. Talsorian Games’ iconic Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game universe. Released in 1988, the first edition was titled Cyberpunk 2030Later, the CD Projekt As team updated it. Cyberpunk Red. Set in 2045, this latest edition of the “roleplaying game of the dark future” serves as a kind of prequel to the video game. Although players are encouraged make up their stories as they play, the timeline between 2020 and 2045 has been established. My friends, that’s a buck crazy timeline.

The world of R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk is a post-apocalyptic alternate future along the same lines as the Fallout series. It’s a post-apocalyptic alternate future, but the timeline does not diverge in the 1950s. Instead, the story takes s s hard turn right in the 1990s. That’s when the Gang of Four — the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — put an end to democracy in the U.S. What follows is a period of martial law that extends, more or less, to Cyberpunk 277’s present day.

Since it’s these four heavyweight three-letter agencies that push the U.S. over the brink into true fascism, consider the introduction of Idris Elba’s special agent Solomon Reed — a member of the newly enshrined Federal Intelligence Agency (FIA) — as a big red flag.

In the face of a fascist trend in the U.S. several wealthy, large states have reacted. North and South California, Texas, Alaska, and several smaller Western states declare themselves to be Free States — they’re nominally part of the Union, but they reserve the right to withhold resources and cooperation from the federal government at their pleasure.

All hell breaks out in all possible ways around the same time.

Image: CD Projekt Red

“We like to say Cyberpunk is real-world problems turned up to 11,” said Cyberpunk Red J Gray speaking to Polygon about this story. He’s not kidding. The list of disasters is long. They include, among others, the failed U.S. attempt to launch a large-scale military operation in Central America, a Neosoviet revival, renewed Cold War tensions, tactical nuclear weapons used in urban areas, massive disruptions on global energy markets, unchecked Corporate warfare, nuclear meltdown, stock market crashes, orbital attack, even droughts, man-made diseases, and asteroids impacts.

In 2077 the world will be a different place. Cyberpunk 277, Night City, standing as a kind of futuristic Casablanca — an extraterritorial escape, a place where personal and private interests have dominion over civil norms. It’s not the place you want to lose track of a major world leader, that’s for sure.

It’s easy to see why the citizens of Dogtown — the largely lawless setting for Phantom Liberty, somewhere near Night City — might have it out for New U.S. President Rosalind Myers. The American culture and land have crumbled beyond Night City. No longer do people have strong allegiances to their home town or nation. Those with money are loyal only to the company/warlord they work for, which provides them safety, food, and shelter — not unlike the company towns that sprung up across the U.S. at the turn of the century.

“When mining operations owned the entire town, you worked for a company,” Gray said. “You bought stuff from the company store. You lived in an apartment owned by the company. You attended company-sponsored events and were paid with company money. So chances are, if you’re a good worker […] you’re OK. You’re living. You’re able to maybe have a family if you want to — or if the company allows you to. But you are basically more a citizen of the company than you are the United States.”

Image: CD Projekt Red

That’s what makes Phantom Liberty such a curious development. By 2077, the United States still exists, but it’s repeatedly been broken and humbled for the better part of a century — effectively reduced to the status of a developing nation, but with a much larger stockpile of nukes. Because the military-industrial complex no longer threatens democracy because of nationalization, the threat is gone. The situation became so dire that the U.S. was forced to intervene. RebrandingThe New United States. In 2077 the Free States and New U.S. still exist, but they are both still nursing their wounds following a bloody and long war that raged in the 2060s.

V is stepping up to rescue a toothless and petty oligarch. Dogtown residents are the most likely losers from this geopolitical situation: they’re a disenfranchised and isolated group, possibly even more so than the Night City inhabitants. When people become scared, their behavior can turn violent.

My gut tells me that, just as R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk 2030Playing on the social and economic insecurity of the 1980s. Phantom LibertyWill also play off the current economic and social uncertainties. Global politics are tense as superpowers such as China, Russia and Europe surge with a newly empowered populist zeal. The situation is similarly troubled in much smaller nations, including CD Projekt’s home country of Poland. How those anxieties will express themselves within a game custom-built to tell intimate stories against a neon-lit urban dystopia is anyone’s guess.

Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk, 2077The original game is required to be played. Pre-orders are available via GOG.com and Steam. The Epic Games Store is also on the PlayStation Store. Microsoft Store. R. Talsorian Games has a lot of storylines planned for Cyberpunk Red. That includes a new set of missions based on Netflix’s Cyberpunk Edgerunners Animations. Learn more about the series on its official site.